1. Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to a cable sleeve with an enveloping hose from a material shrinkable under the influence of heat, whose inner surface is at least partially provided with a hot melt adhesive coating and with a device designed cross-shaped in cross-section for support of cable ends entering the cable sleeve.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A device, as it is for instance known from the DE-OS 35 39 275, serves essentially for fixing entering cables of smaller cross-section than the cable sleeve itself in their position in the entry area and to retain same there after the cable sleeve envelope has been shrunk on. The known device acts as a space divider. The sleeve envelope has areas of hot melt adhesive applied in an annularly shaped manner, such an area being provided where the space divider is arranged inside of the cable sleeve.
It is disadvantageous in the known solution, that a multiplicity of fabrication steps is required. Thus the shrinking envelope must be provided with a hot melt adhesive coating in previously determined areas. The space divider must be separately fabricated. Thus assembly is particularly costly because the user must arrange the space divider accurately where later on a hot melt adhesive coating will be available.
It is a task of the invention to create a solution, with which such a device can be simplified, with which the handling is made more easy and with which particularly the assembly processes can be optimized.
In a device of the previously described type, this task is solved according to the invention in that the device is designed as a molded piece from hot melt adhesive. The hot melt adhesive may be a thermoplastic adhesive on the basis of polyamide. Such an adhesive is well known in the art.
Since the molded piece is made of hot melt adhesive, the installation position of this molded piece may be completely independent from the other design of the shrinking sleeve, i.e., the external envelope of a cable sleeve. It is completely irrelevant for the user, how and in which way the later envelope is coated with hot melt adhesive, since the device itself consists of this material and therefore satisfies all those requirements which are demanded of such coating.
The process of preparing the cable sleeve according to the invention includes the steps of inserting a cross-shaped device of hot melt adhesive between the entering cable ends, placing an enveloping hose over the cable ends and fixing the device in position by applying heat to the hose. The fusion point of the material of the device is lower than that of the inside coating of the hose. Further application of heat causes the device to melt so that the hollow spaces between the cables are filled out by the hot melt adhesive material. This sort of process is very simple for the user, it is free of malfunction and provides a high security of a later particularly good sealing of a cable sleeve designed in such a manner.
A development of the device according to the invention consists in that the fusion point of the hot melt adhesive of the device lies below that of the hot melt adhesive coating of the sleeve.
The difference in the fusion points of the two materials to be utilized has the advantage that, upon application of the heat in accordance with the above-mentioned process steps, the hot melt adhesive of the sleeve is at first prevented at exiting from the end faces by the device. Subsequently heat is applied so as to completely melt the device in the final state. This simplifies the assembly, without sacrificing the advantages inherent in the provision of the device on the edges of a cable sleeve.
By way of a further development, the invention provides that the cable sleeve exhibits at least another device inside it spaced to the respective device on the edge, whereby it is provided in particular, that the distance between the two devices is smaller than 1-times, and in particular smaller than 0.5-times the length of the device.
This layout can be provided particularly then, if the cavities between the inserted cables are comparatively large or geometrically different, which can occur particularly with cables of different diameter. For such a case the provision of at least two such devices spaced from each other can assure that at one spot of the cable sleeve sufficient hot melt adhesive is available in order to fill the cavities between the cable jackets, in order to in this way assure a completely sealed closure in the entry area.
In order to optimize the assembly, the invention provides that the cable ends are wound with a ribbon of hot melt adhesive prior to shrinking on of the envelope hose and after insertion of at least two, whereby the fusion point of the hot melt adhesive of the ribbon lies on the one hand below that of the adhesive coating of the envelope hose and on the other hand below that of the devices.
With this refinement of the invention it is achieved that the hot melt adhesive coating of the envelope hose can be less by that amount, which is made available by the wound-on ribbon in the area of the devices, meaning the already known normal coating with melt adhesive on the inside does not have to be increased even in the case of cable sleeves into which a plurality of cable ends is inserted either on one side or on both sides.
Furthermore, a development of the invention provides that a central area of the envelope hose is free of hot melt adhesive coating.
It has been found that if the envelope hoses are completely coated on the inside with hot melt adhesive, the hot melt adhesive which liquefies during the shrink-on process does not assure an accurate positional attachment of the shrink- or envelope hose, migrations can occur, which not only complicates the assembly, but also does not assure sealing with the ultimate safety.
By means of the inventive development the envelope- or shrink-on hose can first of all be shrunk onto the surface of the cable splice for fixing into position and seats itself tightly there while a hot melt adhesive is lacking, so that its position remains fixed also with additional subsequent application of heat.
In practical utilization cases with standard sleeves the distance between two molded parts can be held smaller than 10 mm. With this arrangement it is achieved that the melted pieces from hot melt adhesive must not be completely melted down during assembly. They can remain solid in the core areas by the dense structure in the inlet areas of the cable ends, without the danger arising thereby that leakages might occur.
In order to simplify the assembly, the invention also provides that the molded pieces are designed to be widening at their free ends of the webs for formation of a contact face for the adhesive ribbon.
In accordance with another embodiment of the invention, the process of preparing the cable sleeve further includes the steps of winding a ribbon of hot melt adhesive around the portions containing the cross-shaped devices. The ribbon is then briefly heated and pressed onto the cables and the outer edges of the devices until they adhere thereto. Subsequently, the hose is placed over the cable ends and is heated at a portion which has no inside hot melt adhesive coating in order to fix the hose in position. Thereafter, additional heat is applied to effect melting of the adhesives. This process results in a simplification of the assembly, with the advantages already named above.